The human form evolved to run long distances in wide open fields, climb trees for nutrient and protection, and create and wield tools. We have built the world to accommodate for that around us. It is not a general purpose form factor.

An urbanized, general purpose robot may take an entirely different form factor than bipedal homosapien, ie. tachikomas from Ghost in the Shell: SAC.

Will a tachikoma fit through a door? If not, that's a bad "general purpose" platform.

A true "general purpose" robot should be able to walk into a space built by humans for humans and perform useful work there. That's the reason why humanoid frames are desirable.

A tachikoma is not the general purpose vehicle. It is an example of what a general purpose robot body could look like. It's job, in an anime, is a super intelligent armored tank.

Humans evolved to be bipedal to see over the bushes and tall grass in the savannah. Maybe the optimal form for a robot is an elephant with prehensile trunk, or giraffe, or a frog.

To some extent I'm willing to remodel if needed so the robot can fit. When I build/remodel my own house I only use extra wide doors so that a wheelchair can fit - I've never had someone in a wheelchair visit, but that is still something I make a requirement: does this help your robot work?

Maybe you are. But is the entire world willing to remodel? For the first generation of general purpose robots, which will, without a doubt, suck?

Chicken and egg problem there. Nobody will adapt the environment for your robots unless your robots have proven to work really well. So your robots have to first work really well in unadapted environments.

That depends on how much is needed. I've lived in houses with doors I need to turn sideways to get through (and I'm a wide guy - I expect fat people couldn't fit in any direction. I've lived in houses where all doors are bit enough for a wheelchair. Most houses have a range of sizes - what is your requirements. Some things are "easy" to do, and some are a major tear down. Without knowing the exact size requirements of a real robot we can't have this discussion. Though If you are in the business I expect you to look at houses and try to come up with something reasonable unless there is a good reason you can't.

There are always first adopters who will if it isn't too expensive. Rich people often live in a house with big enough doors (well most doors big enough - enough for this discussion to say they do), and likely have a need (and the money) for something even if it isn't very good. If your robot starts to prove useful people will ask for it - we build thousands of new houses/apartments every year just in the US, if builders see a demand they will make changes to their new models - it doesn't cost that much more so they don't even need a real demand, just a marketing feature that you could even if nobody does will work (for a few years: you better prove it useful to those who buy new houses fast or the fad will pass!)

It isn't easy because as you say, chicken and egg. If these prove useful people will make changes of the next few decades so they can have one. (though of course your competition will be looking to see if they can make something that doesn't need a remodel to use)

I think a tachikoma will have a hard time climbing up the stairway in an apartment building.

When they aren't doing high speed chases through the streets of Japan they are jumping out of helicopters, climbing walls, and chasing suspects up stairs.

> the Ubuntu 24.04 distro is missing from the list, and this is a shame, since this is a board released late 2024. I contacted OrangePi and they mentioned that they would eventually release a 24.04 version, but there was no clear timeline for that.

Pretty much that is where most of these SBCs fall off my list. Without an active OS development its only 1/2 of the puzzle.

> * Without an active OS development its only 1/2 of the puzzle.*

And this is an unfortunate state of the general purpose ARM64 computing. This board, with 16 GB of RAM and M.2 slot, would make the perfect Linux desktop machine. However, you only receive one or two major distribution updates from the hardware vendor, and then you're stuck with it.

>However, you only receive one or two major distribution updates from the hardware vendor

I like your optimism. Some boards literally get no updates.

Massive shout out to Raspberry Pi team - Raspberry Pi 1 launched 12 years ago with Debian 7, and currently can run Debian 12.

Man it sounds like an android phone where the vendor only supports a few releases. Is that the model they're trying for or did they just land there?

Am I the only one who is enormously sketched out by pretty much any SBC requiring an OS put out by the hardware vendor, active support or no?

A lot of these vendors are overseas, do not share my values around open source, and may well look at my computing activity as a potential data mine to be sold.

Maybe I have trust issues. But if I can't install some community OS out of the box without relying on vendor binary blobs, I don't buy the SBC.

I have the same issues with trusting whatever random vendor. Unfortunately even Raspberrypi OS'es come with some blobs...

imo it's more a driver thing than an os thing.

I can get arch/slack to work on weird hardware, what I can't do is get the promised hardware performance without specific (usually semi-closed) hardware drivers.

If you're relying on , say, rockchip features -- then you're boned without their support -- this is already a big enough heartach without the malware/data-mine angle (which is likely just as valid.)

ARMbian is quite alive, and supports many RISC-V boards in addition to ARM64

I've seen them in posher suburban towns and a lot of HOAs. It's usually worded that no more than 2-4 non relatives can share a single residence. You won't find it in the more working class towns and cities. I have seen some Florida coastal towns, like the Keys, enable a maximum in order to push out the working poor who may be living 6-8 in a 2-bedroom house or apartment.

You aren't in the neighborhoods where this has been in place. But it doesn't mean its not happening.

It happens informally everywhere. People will let friends or family move in and split the rent. In many places the landlord is never around and nobody is watching the property so they get away with it.

> Windows even asks you if you want to use something else other than Chrome if you're in the EU.

And not by choice. It was a 2010 legal decision. Pretty confident that if the court didn't force Microsoft to do it they wouldn't give you that option.

Unfortunately not, but the fact is choice exists everywhere and is even encouraged in some jurisdictions.

Merit-based, in a lot of cases certainly. But need-based, you’re there to subsidize the university and not the other way around.

I was lucky enough to stay in a beach house designed by either the son or grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright. So many amazing architectural details including natural cooling towers. I was young then and didn't really get to appreciate it the house since I was spending my time on the water. But I did take photos and see something interesting every time it rotates through my iPhoto library.

This is the Internet of whimsy I grew up with and I miss it constantly. Thank you, poster.

Bambu X1C: I can recommend the Bambu X1C. It would be my printer of choice. In addition to bed-leveling it has flow calibration and AI detection. With the H2S release prices on the X1C are coming down quickly.

Elegoo Centauri Carbon: I know lots of people will recommend the P1S but this printer has 95% of the features at half the cost. Also extruder temp goes higher (320C), for more exotic materials.

I bought a Centauri Carbon due to the pretty much unbeatable pricing and it has worked well for an old roll of Amazon Basics PLA, using it off-line by copying files onto it using a flash drive. Waiting for https://github.com/OpenCentauri/OpenCentauri to pan out before I'll consider putting it on my network.

Looking into GF infused PLA, or PETG for come up-coming projects, and wondering how things will work out with their "Filament Switching System" which was promised for Q3.

If money hadn't been a concern, I'd've chosen a Prusa XL w/ multiple print heads.

Hi Oskar,

I'm a big fan of TrimEnabler since my Hackintosh days. Sensei looks great but since I already have iStat and thought buying another status menu app would be redundant. But I admire the way it looks.

Does the fact that Backdrop reverse engineers the lockscreen mean that it will never come to the App Store?

And where can you pull

Thanks! I don't publish any of my apps on the App Store. Partly because I want the creative freedom that publishing independently provides, but also because I don't want arbitrary decisions from unknown reviewers to risk ruining my business, and prevent my users from accessing their purchases.

Most of the courts don’t think they are. Early rap beats used lots of samples. Some of the most popular hip hop songs made $0 for the artists as they had to pay royalties on those samples.

No one cares about what the law thinks about art though, particularly for personal consumption or sharing with a small group. Copyright law doesn't even pretend to be slightly just or aligned with reality.

Most synthesizers use sampled instruments.

And those sampled instruments were copyrighted by the manufacturers: YamahaGS, RolandXM, Alesis, Korg, etc. Early hip-hop were sampling disco and R&B records and got roundly slapped once they become popular for money to be involved.

That doesn't answer the question if music composed of samples is considered original, though. It is merely a legal ruling about some music from a certain time period that a lot of people would consider original.